


je suis farouche

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Marijuana, Non-Graphic Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, The 80s AU, a bass named danger, gratuitous punk rock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:58:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5723563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disgruntled diner waiters and the teenage dirtbags that love them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	je suis farouche

**Author's Note:**

> 'hey i'm going to write an 80's high school au' and i then proceeded to do absolutely no research into the 80's at all so like, fair warning for some likely pretty egregious anachronisms. title is the original les mis french typically translated into 'i am wild' but more accurately translated into 'i am fierce/shy', hmu to talk abt les mis honestly. 
> 
> enjoy xoxo

It feels like a summer evening when Kavinsky stumbles through the diner door. 

It’s not; it’s late spring at best, school tomorrow. Kavinsky doesn’t think he’ll go but it’s unimportant, doesn’t matter. Anyway, he straightens up and throws an elbow behind him without looking, satisfied with the soft stomach he impacts on and the _oof_ of expelled air over his shoulder. 

He grins at the near-empty diner, the lurking server, the fry cook watching them unimpressed through the little window. 

“Prick,” Xavier hisses at him and elbows him back on the way past, a sharp thump into Kavinsky’s side he ignores. They head to the table against the giant glass window, Gaspard ruffling Kavinsky’s hair as they go, petty revenge on Xavier’s behalf. It feels like summer, easy and careless and pointless and he loves it. 

They’ve been here a million times before but not for a while and Kavinsky leans across the table to eye the new waiter as he makes his way unwillingly over to their table. 

He's got the most atrocious haircut Kavinsky’s ever seen – or lack thereof, it looks like he hasn’t seen scissors in a couple of years at _least_ – but under that Kavinsky’s thinks he's probably hot. He's got a mouth that looks like it’s sneering even though Kavinsky’s pretty sure the dude couldn’t give less of a shit and a beak of a nose. Unconventionally pretty, Kavinsky wants to say. It's hard to tell with the way Kavinsky’s not even sure the dude can _see_ through those bangs. 

“Can I take your order,” the dude says and he sounds like he’s reading from a script, inflectionless. Kavinsky belatedly glances at his nametag. _Sebastian,_ it reads.

“Sure,” he drawls anyway and glances across the room at the menu. “Hamburger an’ fries, diet Coke.” 

Gaspard says something, orders something and then orders for Xavier when Xavier refuses to say anything. Kavinsky doesn’t pay attention. He’s trying to make out the color of Sebastian’s eyes without letting on that he’s staring. They’re pale, whatever they are, and unfocused like he’s looking clear through Kavinsky and out the other side. 

“Coming right up,” Sebastian says, and his voice is just as blank as before. 

Kavinsky watches him go, lazy and not even bothering to hide that he’s staring now. 

Sebastian. 

Ugly-pretty Sebastian, inflectionless and unpleasant and... interesting. Gaspard is elbowing Xavier relentlessly across the booth, arguing at the top of their lungs now. Kavinsky doesn’t stop staring until Sebastian reaches the swinging doors to the kitchen.

//

It’s dark when they leave, or almost dark. The warm, smearing feeling of a summer evening, the blurry half-vision of twilight as Kavinsky leads the way across the parking lot. The pavement is warm under his sneakers still, warm from baking in the sunshine. They have school tomorrow but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like nothing’s real but the harsh, cold fluorescent lights of the diner behind them and the shinning side of Kavinsky’s car ahead, looming in the dusk.

“Where next?” he asks when they’ve reached the car, fishing his pack of smokes from his pocket. It takes him a second longer to pat his pockets down for a lighter and he gives up, reaches over and snags the lighter from Gaspard’s pocket. 

Gaspard lets him do it with a narrow look of warning but no comment. He leans against the side of Kavinsky’s car, careful because Kavinsky’s trained all of his friends to be careful of his fucking car. 

“Brodi’s got something going, I heard,” Xavier offers with a shrug. “Always does.” 

Kavinsky lights his cigarette with a long drag and stares back across the parking lot. He thinks he can kinda make out Sebastian through the fogged plate glass windows. A skinny, dark figure with a mop of dark hair. 

“I dig it,” he says with a fleeting grin around his cigarette, flipping the lighter back to Gaspard and laughing when he fumbles it. 

“Fuck you,” Gaspard offers in reaction but tucks his lighter away. “Whatever, let’s just fuckin’ go, I’m bored as shit.” 

“In a minute,” Kavinsky says lazily and closes his eyes, taking a drag and blowing it in a bright white plume at the sky. 

“Fuck you,” Gaspard repeats. Kavinsky grins again, doesn’t open his eyes, just tilts his head up and takes another drag, deep and straight to his lungs this time. It feels a little bit dizzying when he opens his eyes, the fading ribbons of white smoke and the darkness beyond, the solid brilliance of the diner and his friend’s ghostly faces. 

“Rock-paper-scissors for shotgun,” Xavier says and Kavinsky blinks the feeling away. Useless feelings for a night like this that means nothing. 

Gaspard scoffs and shoves him a little. Xavier shoves back, eyes narrowed and annoyed. 

Dropping his cigarette to sizzle out on the warm pavement, Kavinsky props himself up against the chill metal side of the car next to Gaspard. 

“Man, you fucking hate Kav’s driving,” Gaspard points out. It's not untrue, Xavier doesn't trust him to drive safely. Kavinsky doesn’t; he’s not wrong. 

“Rock-paper-scissors,” Xavier repeats stubbornly and Gaspard caves with a sigh and a shrug, heaving himself hips-first off the side of Kavinsky’s car and shaking his hands free of his jacket pockets. 

Xavier loses anyway, climbs into the backseat with a minimum of bitching. Kavinsky buckles his seatbelt this time, a halfway-sincere attempt to make it up to him. Gaspard doesn't even bother, just puts his feet up on the dash until Kavinsky reaches over to shove them off. 

“My car, my rules,” he warns and guns the engine. 

This is what Kavinsky fucking _lives_ for, rubber on pavement, tires on roads, _forever_. Even like this, even with Xavier and Gaspard squabbling pointlessly over the little stack of cassettes. Even when he can barely flirt with the speed limit. 

He swears he was born for this.

//

Kavinsky skips first period, sitting on the hood of his car in the parking lot across the street from the school. It’s just Biology, nothing important and he’s got a philosophical opposition to dissections anyway. He heads inside sometime after the bell for second period’s rung, sliding into his seat in Spanish class with a grin and a wave at an exasperated Mrs. Hernandez.

She doesn’t bother telling him to see her after class. She knows he won’t go. 

Lunch bell rings half an hour later, interrupting aimless doodling and blank boredom. Kavinsky goes to the lunchroom even though he normally doesn’t. He’s a man on a mission. 

“Sebastian,” Kavinsky says, sliding into the chair across from Pedro. “Tell me about him.” 

“Kav,” Pedro says, pulling one of his headphones back, blinking owlishly at him. He’d been jamming to something, tapping a quiet beat along with what's that’s spilling crashing and loud and discordant through his tinny headphones. “What, who? What?” 

“Sebastian,” Kavinsky repeats and points baldly. 

Sebastian is sitting across the room in the farthest, most deserted corner of cafeteria, reading quietly and somehow not noticing Kavinsky’s pointing at all. There's another kid with him, a boy, and he's talking to Sebastian animatedly. Neither of them seem to care that Sebastian isn't listening. 

“Oh,” says Pedro and pushes his headphones all the way back to loop around his neck. “Just, Jesus, Kav. I don't know everyone.” 

“Sure you do, Busy P,” Kavinsky says and grins his friendliest. 

Pedro points at him warningly and then sighs, tugging on the ends of his hair, distracted. 

“You'd probably know as much as me, man,” he says with a shrug. “Dude keeps pretty much to himself. He's friends with, uh, Uffie I think? And that kid he's with, that's Franck.” 

Kavinsky leans back in his seat and stares at the little pair until Franck looks in their general direction and he turns back to Pedro. Pedro’s watching him, bemused and tolerant. 

“Right,” Kavinsky says and reaches over to snag a fry off Pedro’s tray. “Thanks, Busy P.” 

“Screw you,” Pedro says, friendly, and pulls his headphones back over his ears.

//

Kavinsky goes to his last two classes mostly for kicks, stares out the window in every one and doesn’t write down a word the teacher says. He doesn’t care, doesn’t even know why the dude is bothering him so damn badly.

He’ll forget about it, he resolves, and gets up when the bell’s rung, dutifully following the crowd out. He’s reaching for his smokes before he’s even cleared the front door and somewhere behind him he dimly hears an adult voice yelling indignantly, but he’s already gone. They can’t catch him when he’s halfway to his car already, cigarette in his mouth. 

Busy P’s waiting for him, sitting lotus-style on the ground next to the driver’s-side door. Kavinsky crosses his arms and watches him for a long moment before deciding on what to say. Pedro doesn’t seem to notice he’s there, too busy tapping out some kind of beat against his knees with his eyes closed. 

“Does this look like some kind of hippie commune to you?” he asks at last and sniggers when Pedro jumps. 

Pedro doesn’t say anything rude though, just scrambles to his feet with a smile and claps Kavinsky on the shoulder in a friendly way. 

“No, brother,” he intones in a goofy, blurred imitation of himself when he’s stoned, schooling his face into a look of somber gravity. He giggles a moment later though, breaking façade back to his normal cheerful anxiety, bouncing in place a little bit. “I asked around about Sebastian a little.” 

“You shouldn’t have-,” Kavinsky jolts to say and Pedro shrugs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. 

“I got curious,” he said. “Interesting guy. Not very friendly.” 

His smile suddenly looks way too knowing. Kavinsky narrows his eyes right back until Pedro shrugs. 

“I’ve got his work schedule and that’s about it,” he admits. 

“You're a fucking creep, dude,” Kavinsky says. He's impressed though. 

“You asked!” Pedro says indignantly. “If you don't wanna know just say and I'll fuck right off.”

“No, no,” Kavinsky responds hastily and throws his arm around Pedro’s shoulders. “Tell me, I wanna know.”

Pedro gives him a sideways look, amused, but doesn’t comment. Instead he elbows Kavinsky companionably. 

“He works weekdays after school til late,” he says casually and then is unhooking himself and walking away with his hands in his pockets before Kavinsky really has the chance to process what he said. He only works it out when Pedro’s already reached the curb

“Wait, fuck you!” he shouts after him and can’t help a laugh. “I could have figured that out myself, asshole!” 

Pedro doesn’t turn, just waves vaguely behind him. He’s already got his headphones hooked in, Kavinsky realizes. Likely Pedro can’t even hear him. 

Asshole.

//

He waits a few days, goes to school even less than usual and skips lunch. There are piles of detention slips in his otherwise empty locker, overdue and increasingly angry. He doesn’t go, just can’t bring himself to care. Maybe they’ll flunk him. He still doesn’t care.

Monday he gives in and visits the diner, ambles through the swinging door and makes himself go all the way the table by the window before checking covertly around for Sebastian. He’s there, shaking shaggy black hair out of his eyes and staring blankly through a harried-looking mother as she orders for her kids. 

He gets a few minutes to settle in and sprawl across the bench seat before Sebastian makes his way over. His apron doesn’t fit, Kavinsky notices inanely and doesn’t know why he notices. It’s not like it’s important. 

“What can I get for you?” Sebastian asks. 

It sounds exactly the same, like he’s reading from a script and wants desperately to be anywhere but here. A long moment of déjà vu and all Kavinsky can do for a split second is glance across the booth at where Gaspard and Xavier should be. 

They’re not. It’s been days. 

“My name’s Kavinsky,” he says, recovering, and leans forward with his brightest, most charming smile. 

Sebastian blinks and for a moment his face comes alive. Confusion, a little startled. Momentarily he’s actually looking at Kavinsky instead of through him. 

It does wonders for his face. Ugly-pretty for sure, Kavinsky decides. 

Than Sebastian’s blinking again and his face is smoothing back to an unfriendly not-sneer. 

“What can I get for you,” he repeats. 

“Hamburger an’ fries, Pepsi,” Kavinsky rattles off and leans back in his seat to watch Sebastian walk away. He’s being an idiot, he knows. He’s giving this too much time and attention, caring too much. 

He’s not gonna come back here, he resolves. He’ll forget all about Sebastian.

//

“What can I get for you,” Sebastian asks, and this time around he’s frowning at Kavinsky. Staring at him, actually, eyes wide and unpleasant. It’s not a pretty expression by a long shot but Kavinsky grins into it anyway.

“Your name, please,” Kavinsky says and leans his elbows on the table, smiling winsomely up into Sebastian’s glare. 

Sebastian glances down at his nametag and then up at Kavinsky again, disbelieving. Kavinsky pulls the edges of his innocent smile higher. 

“I’m Kavinsky. And you are?” he prompts when the silence has spread itself nice and thick and awkward over them both. 

Sebastian hesitates a moment longer and then sighs long and noisy through his nose, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. His face is suddenly less stiff, more exhausted and annoyed. It’s a subtle change and Kavinsky watches it happen, rapt. 

“If I play your little game will you order something?” Sebastian asks, voice pitched low. 

Kavinsky gives this the due consideration. 

“It’s possible,” he decides. 

Sebastian sighs again, closing his eyes, and then opens them and skewers Kavinsky with a narrow look that promises nothing good. It’s anything but inviting and Kavinsky can’t look away. 

“Sebastian Akchoté-Bozovic,” Sebastian tells him and then hefts his little notebook. “Now will you order something?” 

“Hamburger, fries, Pepsi,” Kavinsky rattles off and Sebastian rolls his eyes, flips his notebook shut without writing anything on it. He walks way without saying another word and Kavinsky watches him go blatantly, leaning over his elbows. 

He’s still not really all that sure why he’s doing this but he doesn’t care as much anymore. It’s interesting. Kavinsky isn’t bored.

//

The only warning Kavinsky gets in the slap-slap-slap of sneakers on pavement.

“You’ve been avoiding me!” Kavinsky hears, deafening in his ear, and then there’s an arm looping around his neck, bending him over. He yelps and bats ineffectually and then lets out something that he refuses to call a squawk when he feels a set of knuckles scrubbing briskly across his scalp. 

“Fuck you, Oizo, get off,” he shouts at last and wriggles free, shoving away from the boy that’d been holding him in place. “I haven’t, I fucking swear!” 

“Mhmm!” Oizo says, loud and disbelieving, and grabs for him again. Kavinsky dances back, laughing, barely aware of the small constellation of people that have stopped to stare. 

“I haven’t man, I mean it!” he says and Oizo catches him at last, looping his arm around Kavinsky’s shoulders instead of his neck and shaking him companionably. “I’ve been busy with shit, you’re not my fuckin’ dad.” 

“Thank Christ,” Oizo says and shakes Kavinsky again. “I’d beat you until you cried, you little shit. You’ve missed every one of the shows I’ve invited you to for like, a month.” 

“I have not!” Kavinsky says indignantly even though he has. Oizo gives him a narrow sideways look that says he doesn’t believe Kav either. 

“You’re coming to my next party or else I’ll find you and teach you a goddamn lesson about ignoring your friends,” Oizo threatens and Kavinsky laughs despite himself. He’ll follow through, Kavinsky knows. Oizo’s his best fucking friend. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs like he’s offended. “I’ll fucking come. When is it?” 

“Friday,” Oizo says, and then rattles off an address that’s definitely not his house. Kavinsky doesn’t bother to remember it. He’ll ask around. Someone will know. 

“Is this gonna be another fucking house show?” he demands, laughing. Oizo’s steering them down the sidewalk in the direction of the café on the corner, pretending like he isn’t aiming to get Kavinsky to buy him lunch. Kavinsky will do it too, because he’s a fucking sucker. 

“No,” Oizo lies easily. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, goddamn. Buy me a sandwich, I’m still feeling all offended.” 

“Sure,” Kavinsky says with an easy laugh, and follows him through the swinging door.

//

He's not expecting Sebastian here - here being this smelly little squat, Oizo’s house party. It _is_ a party, more or less. A local punk band setting up to play cheap knockoff covers of The Ramones and The Clash, an excuse to drink shitty beer and scream off the itch under the skin. Kavinsky likes it and it suits him just fine.

He's not expecting Sebastian but Sebastian’s there, anyway. 

He spots the dude an easy hour into the night, a couple beers in, maybe half an hour until the band plays. It's the inelegant sprawl of ungainly limbs and clothing in mismatched shades of black that catches his eye. He's alone, nursing a beer that looks warm, and Kavinsky is leaning over the arm of the couch before he can remind himself to play it cool. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Kavinsky drawls and tips in what's probably too close. Sebastian barely turns his head to look at him, doesn't shift his carefully contained posture an inch. 

“Kavinsky,” he acknowledges. It's not an invitation but Kavinsky takes it as one anyway, spills over into the seat next to Sebastian in a tumble of drunkenly graceful limbs. 

“And what's a boy like you doing in a place like this?” he asks and gestures out expansively. 

He's right, of course. It's not even Kavinsky’s scene, really, he just gets a free pass because his car is ugly and he's a little too wild to just be one of those stupid schoolboys playing punk dress-up. Ugly-pretty Sebastian in his clean black clothes and uncaringly isolation, he stands out like nothing else. 

“Sitting,” Sebastian says, heavily ironic, and Kavinsky grins at him. 

“But really,” he says and flutters his eyelashes in a comic play at guilelessness. The corner of Sebastian’s mouth quirks a little at least. Small victories. 

“A friend,” he answers and thumbs over his shoulder carelessly. 

Kavinsky looks past him and spots the kid. 

It's hard not to, he's practically glowing. Smiling and laughing, clutching a battered bass in his fingers like it's a lifeline, and there's a couple people grouped around him all staring like he's preaching gospel. The pointed, stiff look is gone. He looks happy. He looks like he fits in, more than Sebastian, more even than Kavinsky. It does wonders for him. 

“Franck,” Kavinsky says and turns back to Sebastian. “Yeah, cool.”

He's still looking at Franck, something wistful and sweet in the grin tucked almost invisible in the corner of his mouth. 

“I cover for him.” The grin is gone when he turns back to Kavinsky. “His parents don't like that he does this, so. I drive him around, keep his bass.” He shrugs. 

“You’re a good friend,” Kavinsky says, drunk and frank, and then dimly thinks he should regret that. Sebastian’s snorting though, looking away, and Kavinsky wonders if maybe the darkness of the room is covering just a hint of a blush. Kavinsky barely stops himself from reaching out to touch, to see if his cheek is warm or not. 

“If you say so,” Sebastian says and Kavinsky opens his mouth to say something but there’s the crashing noise of feedback and he jumps, the words evaporating from his mouth. 

“Hello,” a dude’s voice says. It’s too loud, edged with screaming feedback. Kavinsky knows the sound. “We’re Third Day Adventists and we’re going to rock your face off.” 

Kavinsky turns to look just in time to catch a wave of the Sex Pistols to the face. It’s loud; it’s more than loud, it’s flaying and angry and a boy too young for his voice to have settled just yet too close to the mic. Beneath it, badly tuned guitar and drums out of time more often than not and- and a bassline. 

Kavinsky looks past the thrashing singer and sees Franck. 

He’s curled up around his bass and his posture should look frightened but there’s something about it and it just looks… Kavinsky doesn’t know. 

Franck’s something else when he brings his fingers to the strings of his bass, something Kavinsky isn’t sure he fully understands. He doesn’t grow, doesn’t change, none of that horseshit, Kavinsky isn’t that drunk. But he _seems_ bigger, _seems_ darker, seems to be something else entirely to the scared little kid Kavinsky had seen sitting in the cafeteria with Sebastian weeks ago. His teeth are flashing in something that Kavinsky isn’t sure is a smile. 

He looks away and finds Sebastian watching Franck too, that wistful little smile that’s more the absence of scorn than anything back in the corner of his mouth. 

“He’s good,” Kavinsky says even though he doesn’t really know that Franck is. He doesn’t know much about making music this way, hasn’t cared enough before. Sebastian glances his way, smile staying even though he’s looking at Kavinsky now. 

“He is,” he agrees and turns back to Franck. 

Kavinsky watches him watching Franck for a moment. Too long. It’s weird, and he turns away, heads for the cooler of beer. They’re cool and wet and he rolls one between his palms blankly. 

The music is still loud and it’s not his scene. It’s really not. He can’t stop listening though, can’t stop hearing the way it’s _supposed_ to sound, hear Franck’s bass undercutting it all. It’s not…

He cracks open the beer and drinks half of it in one long chug. It doesn’t help. 

He loses himself for a while, in the music, in the beer. Forces himself not to look for Sebastian, lets himself watch Franck for a while. He’s good at this, this drinking and not-thinking. He knows how to let himself blur into the surroundings, let go and come up again hours later with a hangover and no memories. 

He finds himself on the couch. Sebastian’s couch. He turns his head and Sebastian’s there. He’s watching Franck in a blank way like he’s seen it all before but still loves it. 

“Hi,” Kavinsky says. 

Sebastian glances at him and snorts. Blurrily Kavinsky considers being offended but can’t really bring himself to care. 

“You’re drunk,” Sebastian says softly. Kavinsky only hears it because they’re pressed to close together. He wonders when that happened. Whether he’d been the one to sit down first, or Sebastian. It seems important somehow. 

“Mhmm,” Kavinsky hums. “Think… it’s time to go home.” 

Sebastian studies him for several long moments, eyes sharpening for the first time all evening. 

“Are you driving back?” he asks at last. Kavinsky pauses. Thinks about it. 

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “I was.”

Sebastian looks at him for a long, long time and then sighs. 

“Give me your keys,” he says. “I'll drive you home.” 

Kavinsky considers protesting, watching Sebastian watch him impatiently. Sebastian’s right anyways. He’s too drunk, would have ended up passed out in his backseat when he realized. He just doesn’t want to hand the keys over, the keys to the tiny corner of the world that’s only and solely _Kavinsky’s_. 

“Fine,” he says at last, digs into his pocket and slaps the jingling pile of keys into Sebastian’s outstretched hand. He can’t remember the last time he’d had them out of his possession. 

Sebastian curls his fingers around the keys without looking, glancing back over his shoulder at Franck. He looks resigned and amused when he turns back to Kavinsky. 

“He’ll be here for another few hours,” he says quietly, barely audible over the thrashing music. “I’ll leave your car at your place, alright?” 

“Alright,” Kavinsky says and stands when Sebastian does to follow him out the door. 

He wakes up in his own bed and his car is in the driveway. His keys are in the pocket of his jeans right next to his wallet. He doesn’t remember the drive, doesn’t remember retrieving the keys. There’s not a scratch in his car’s paint though. 

He can’t remember if Sebastian had said anything, he hadn’t left a note. Kavinsky shrugs that away and turns the key in the ignition just to hear the engine purr.

//

Sebastian isn't in any of Kavinsky’s classes, he discovers when he bothers to go. He thinks he'd have noticed that bad of a haircut anyway but maybe not.

Franck’s there in Biology though, hunched up small and quiet in the back corner. He jumps when Kavinsky slaps his mostly empty backpack onto the adjacent desk, looks up from the painstaking doodle he's pressing into the margin of his notebook. 

“Hi,” Kavinsky says and tries on his most guileless grin. 

Franck doesn't say anything. He just stares, so many miles from the animated, happy boy Kavinsky had seen at the party Kavinsky almost can't reconcile the pale ghost in front of him with the memory. 

“I saw you at the party,” Kavinsky tries again. 

Franck somehow finds a way to go even paler. He looks bloodless now. 

“Not much of a talker, huh,” Kavinsky says even though he knows it's not true. “That's alright. I liked your playing, didn't know you could do that. I'm surprised you don't spread it around more.” 

He pauses but Franck still doesn't say anything, just watches him talk quietly. Kavinsky thinks maybe he's a little less white at least. 

“I would,” he continues and sprawls even further back in his seat. “Chicks go fucking crazy for that shit.” 

Franck snorts quietly and Kavinsky grins at him encouragingly. 

“It's not about that,” Franck says under his breath, and for the first time he's ever really talked to Kavinsky it's not all that climactic. His voice is kind of cracking, a little bit hoarse. He sounds sure, though, despite it all. 

“Would be for me,” Kavinsky counters even though he thinks maybe he knows what Franck’s talking about. Something like how Kavinsky feels about his car. 

“You're Kavinsky,” Franck says like that explains it. Maybe it does. 

“Well fuckin’ spotted,” Kavinsky snorts, grins nice to take the sting out of it. Franck smiles back hesitantly. 

The teacher opens the door, steps through, calls the class to order. Kavinsky doesn't even bother pulling a notebook out of his backpack. A moment later Franck’s slipping a sheet of wrinkled paper under his elbow anyway. 

It's got a little smiley face in the corner in ballpoint pen and Kavinsky grins at it for a long moment.

//

“Fucking, yeah,” Xavier says and spills out of the backseat and onto the sidewalk in front of Brodi’s house. Gaspard’s following a moment later, hip-checking Xavier into the side of Kavinsky’s car and then taking off at a brisk jog when Xavier shrieks in anger and starts for him.

The house is lit up but subdued, music barely audible even when Kavinsky opens his door. 

He climbs out slowly, is barely at the sidewalk when Xavier finally catches Gaspard near the porch and tackles him into the lawn. They’re not really fighting, mostly just tussling and rolling around just to be there. Kavinsky kicks Xavier in the asscheek on his way past and has to flee for the door when Xavier makes a noise that sounds disturbingly inhuman and starts struggling to his feet. 

Kavinsky doesn’t stop laughing.

//

Kavinsky goes to Biology a lot more now, now that he knows what a quietly hilarious little asshole Franck can be. The early mornings are almost worth it and the teacher’s pretty much stopped staring at him like she suspects he’s about to try building a bomb out of the chemistry supplies or something. He still doesn’t show up every day, of course. He’s not that far gone.

He’s skipped the morning again today though, and he’s skulking his way through the afternoon break crowd, trying to get to his last class without running into anyone looking to bring up the number of detention slips he’s still collecting in the bottom of his locker. 

He’s kind of halfway expecting the hand on his shoulder. Knew he’d be caught by someone, eventually. He’s expecting the way they spin him around. 

He’s not expecting it to be a tiny chick in a ripped-up sweater and cutoffs, glaring up at him like he’d personally killed her goldfish right in front of her and then pissed on the corpse. 

“Listen,” the girl commands and her voice sounds like it could cut through steel. He covers his balls instinctively. 

“It’s hilarious when you’re fucking with just Sebastian,” the girl says and folds her arm in a sharp motion that makes him flinch. 

Belatedly Kavinsky connects her with Pedro’s words, _he’s friends with Uffie, I think_. He opens his mouth to say something and her eyes narrow further. He shuts his mouth, thinking better of it. He thinks he really wants to know what it is that she’s doing that’s making her tiny frame so terrifying. 

“Seb bitching about you, that’s cool,” Uffie continues. “But you leave Franck the fuck alone, alright?” 

Kavinsky gapes at her for a long moment. 

“…Franck?” he asks at last and his voice breaks embarrassingly. He clears his throat and pretends he’s not flushing suddenly. Uffie’s eyes soften just a little though and Kavinsky stops feeling quite so much like he’s about to get his dick chopped off. 

“Don’t fuck with him,” she says and jabs her finger into his chest again. He yelps and takes a step back. 

“I’m not trying to dick around with Franck!” he says, way too loud. Several people turn to stare, a stutter in the regular flow of people past them. He glares at them until they turn away and then looks back at Uffie. She’s staring at him, considering suddenly. 

“Alright,” she says at last and shrugs. “If I hear anything though…” 

“Fuck, whatever,” he says and throws his hands up. “I’m not going to fuck with him, Jesus.” 

“Good,” she says and then she smiles. It’s shockingly pretty. Kavinsky would be charmed if he weren’t still fighting off the instinct to cup his balls protectively. 

She walks away without another word, jaunty like she hadn’t just put the fear of god in Kavinsky like not even dudes three times her weight had. He sort of admires it, maybe admires the view a little bit. While covering his dick, of course. 

“Fucking hell,” he mutters to himself and shrugs his backpack on.

//

“You again,” Sebastian says, and the eyebrow he arches at Kavinsky grinning up at him from the booth isn’t even all that displeased. Maybe even wryly amused.

“Me again,” Kavinsky agrees. Sebastian snorts. 

“Hamburger and fries with a Pepsi?” he asks and Kavinsky laughs, leans back in the booth. 

“Exactly,” he says.

//

“So Uffie had a talk with me,” he says when Franck drops into his chair.

Franck groans and scrubs an annoyed hand across his face. He’s frowning darkly when he comes up. 

“What’d she say?” he asks and Kavinsky laughs, sprawls out in his chair and tucks his arms behind his head. He’s feeling pretty charitable now that there’s at least one set of doors between Uffie and his balls. The whole situation is, admittedly, pretty funny. 

“Warned me not to fuck with you,” he says easily. “Seemed to think me fucking with Sebastian is hilarious though.” 

Franck’s quiet for a long time and then makes a quiet noise of frustration. It’s astonishingly genuine and when Kavinsky frowns and turns his head Franck is running a jerky finger over the cover of his textbook, not looking at him. His expression almost looks a little… hurt?

“I’m, y’know, quiet,” he mutters. “Not a goddamn _charity case_.” He doesn’t look up until Kavinsky elbows him in the side. 

“Hey now,” Kavinsky says and widens his eyes at Franck’s dark expression. “Don’t be a fuckin’ potty mouth.” 

“You’re such an asshole, Kav,” Franck says, but he’s laughing and Kavinsky knows a win when he fucking sees one.

//

Kavinsky’s barely awake and he’s pretty sure the teacher isn’t either. She’d handed out a worksheet and gone into her office and hasn’t come out since, for _half an hour_. Kavinsky’s ready to fall asleep and it’s only Franck poking him insistently every time his eyes drift shut that’s keeping him from a really fucking nice nap.

He’s settled into drawing looping patterns, lazy and mindless. Hasn’t said a word in ten minutes. 

“Sebastian says you stare at me.” 

Kavinsky jolts upright in his chair. When he turns to stare Franck isn’t looking up from the drawing he's bent over. His pencil’s still though, point resting unmoving on the page. 

“I don't-,” he begins, even though he does a little. 

“I told him you're not staring at me,” Franck says and looks sideways, nailing Kavinsky with a knowing look a shade away from a grin. “‘Cause you're actually staring at him.” 

Kavinsky can’t breathe. 

“It's fine,” Franck says, and he's back to drawing when Kavinsky thinks to look. “It's…”

He pauses, the scratch of pencil on paper stuttering to a stop again. 

“It's fine,” he repeats at last, and the pencil resumes. “I, y’know, I won't tell anyone.” 

It takes twenty minutes, Kavinsky idly doodling looping, nonsense patterns in the margins of his worksheet before he can make his thoughts work themselves into words. Twenty minutes of the monotonous scratch of pencil on paper beside him, lulling and meaningless. Twenty minutes of staring at his hand moving without him telling it to. 

“I didn’t want to, y’know,” he manages quietly, at last. He hadn’t wanted to think about it. Hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. It isn’t safe. Would never be safe. It’s stupid dangerous, the kind of danger not even Kavinsky himself wants to touch. Not when it’s risking more than just his own stupid, selfish skin. 

He knows what happens to boys that like other boys. 

“It’s just…” he tries again when Franck doesn’t say anything. “A bad idea. Not safe.” 

Franck makes a considering noise. His pencil doesn’t stop moving and Kavinsky wonders, half-hysterical, how _Franck_ is suddenly the one being collected and rational. 

“I think it’s worth a try,” he says quietly and Kavinsky can’t look at him. He looks down at his hands instead and the weird skidding path his pen has just taken right across his looping doodles. It’s a jagged line and he focuses on that instead of… anything else. 

The fear is unfamiliar to Kavinsky. Cold, sick in his stomach. Unpleasant and shaking and more for Sebastian than himself. He can take a beating, if someone decides he's been acting too queer lately. Skinny, brittle Sebastian, standoffish and friends with exactly two people to Kavinsky’s knowledge, he doesn't know. 

Franck’s fingers touch the back of his hand, just a momentary brush and then gone. Kavinsky jumps, looks up. 

Franck’s looking at him and he looks disappointed. In Kavinsky. It’s entirely possible he’s glaring. 

“You’re not the only person involved, y’know,” he says, waving his pencil vaguely. 

The words punch through Kavinsky like a knife, sharp and clean. It’s an explosion in his head, what that _means_ , if it means what he thinks it means. If Sebastian knows. If Franck is right, then…

“Does he-,” Kavinsky asks, off-balance and hating that fact. He’s not sure what he’s trying to say but apparently Franck does because he actually sets his pencil down and laughs, sweeping a thoughtless hand across the paper to knock away eraser leavings. 

“You’re a moron,” he says and shrugs. “Sebastian doesn’t let people like him, y’know.” 

“I know,” Kavinsky says because he’s pretty sure he does know. The way Sebastian stands like it’s an affront to him that a person would dare to talk to him. The mouth, the haircut, the complete absence of any attempt to make himself palatable. 

Franck makes a mocking noise and Kavinsky looks back at him. He’s smiling a little bit, a ghost of a smile, eyes distant and a little rueful. 

“I think he’s let you like him,” Franck says conspiratorially and picks his pencil up again. 

Kavinsky doesn’t know what to say to that and Franck doesn’t seem to want a reply anyways. He just keeps scratching away at his drawing and he’s smiling still when Kavinsky looks his way.

//

“You and Sebastian seem to be getting along,” Oizo says.

They’re at another of Oizo’s ‘parties’ and sure, yeah, Kavinsky’s been coming to them more and more. Sebastian’s at nearly every one, alone and unconcerned, watching Franck play and sipping warm beer with unhurried disinterest. Kavinsky pretends like he isn’t watching most of the time but he’s just on the right side of too drunk to remember that right now. 

“Yeah,” Kavinsky says vaguely and takes a long pull of his beer. 

“He actually likes you,” Oizo says, tone teasing, and Kavinsky catches himself grinning. It’s dopey and probably too happy and he hides it with another fast drink. Across the room Sebastian’s spinning a bottle in his fingers and Kavinsky doesn’t look away. 

“Yeah,” he says when he’s got his mouth back under control.

//

He still doesn’t show up for class at least once a week but he’s started going to lunch instead of heading out to smoke belligerently under the bleachers. Franck had flinched a little bit when Kavinsky had first slapped his tray down on the table but Sebastian had just arched an eyebrow and given something that was a couple shades of sarcasm from a genuine smile.

Pedro had followed Kavinsky, set his own tray down, and immediately been absorbed in a conversation with Franck about whatever band he has leaking from his headphones at an insane volume. It’s sort of cute to watch actually, Franck a degree of his more outgoing self and Pedro working his own anxious brand of magic. 

Sebastian’s back to reading. Kavinsky sneaks a glance at the cover and wonders what kind of book a dude with a name like _Bukowski_ would write. Probably not anything Kavinsky would want to read. 

Sebastian’s knee presses against his under the table. Kavinsky eats his fries, mostly quiet, and doesn’t think about what that means.

//

“No,” Franck says, aghast. The teacher doesn’t even look their way. She’s given up on them both.

“Yep. Little Kavinsky. Right to the point, y’know,” Kavinsky says proudly, and then hastens to continue. “Not that it’s little, alright, I’m not saying that.” 

“Jesus,” Franck giggles. He looks delighted. 

“You haven’t named yours?” Kavinsky asks with a waggle of his eyebrows and a poorly aimed elbow. 

“Fuck, no,” Franck says and then ducks his head. “I named my bass?” 

“Yeah?” Kavinsky asks, interested. 

“Danger,” Franck says proudly. Kavinsky blinks at that and then breaks into a hoot of laughter. 

“That’s so lame!” he says and Franck punches him in the arm. 

“Kavinsky, please go to the office,” the teacher interrupts, sounding resigned. Kavinsky packs up to go – he’s not going to the office and he’s pretty sure the teacher knows it. When the door closes behind him he plasters himself to the little window and waits until Franck looks up and meets his eyes. 

“ _Lame_ ,” he mouths and laughs when Franck flips him off.

//

“All I’m saying is that it’s fucking _obvious_ how much the music industry as a whole was influenced by the Pistols, okay?” Pedro says and slaps a palm on the tabletop for emphasis. “People need to at least acknowledge the lineage, it’s important!”

Sebastian doesn’t look up from his book but he nods dutifully. Kavinsky suspects that if asked he’d have no idea what Pedro had just said. 

“We know, P,” Kavinsky says and stuffs a nugget into his mouth. Pedro subsides with a mutter and eats a spoonful of mashed potatoes grumpily. 

Franck sits down next to Kavinsky with a thump, tray clattering down with the familiar click of plastic on plastic table. Kavinsky doesn’t pay any attention, more absorbed in pouring his milk into his mashed potatoes. It makes a disgusting lumpy stew and sometimes if he can trick Pedro into looking at it he makes the most hilarious noise. 

“Uh, Franck?” Pedro asks and there’s something in his tone that has Kavinsky’s head popping up to look. Sebastian’s looking too a moment later, alarmed

“What?” Franck replies flatly, not looking up. 

He’s shedding his nuggets with his fork, slow and methodical and absolutely _terrifying_. 

“You uh…” Pedro says and then goes quiet when Franck finally looks up at him with an expression as blank as Kavinsky’s ever seen it. He visibly pulls himself together and hoists up an anxious smile. “You alright, buddy?” 

Franck looks at him and then down at the little pile of shredded nugget, pasty and glistening under florescent lights. 

“I don’t like chicken,” he says at last. 

“Alright,” Pedro says faintly. 

Sebastian snorts and turns a page.

//

Kavinsky doesn’t smoke a lot of pot. Honestly, he doesn’t. Doesn’t like the feeling of every thought he has being blunted, prefers the sharp-edged soda-pop fizz of drunkenness.

“Dude come smoke up with us in the auditorium,” Xavier says. Brodi’s hanging on Gaspard’s shoulder behind them, grinning wide and white and mildly concerning like he always does. 

“Yeah, okay,” Kavinsky says. 

An hour later Kavinsky is pleasantly high, body numb and tingling and far away. He feels like everything’s spinning around him, exciting and happy. They’re spread out on the stage, Xavier and Gaspard and Brodi and Kavinsky. He’d almost be worried but there’s layer of dust so thick it’s making him sneeze every few minutes. No one’s going to come looking for them here. 

“Jesus,” he says and Xavier laughs somewhere by his left hip. “Jesus Christ I’m so high right now.” 

“Yeah,” Brodi says slowly from his other side, farther away. His voice is slow and drawn out, more of a _yeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaah_. It’s hilarious and Kavinsky laughs so hard he almost punches himself in the nose. He curls up on himself instead, turning on his side and sniggering until he can’t breathe and has to spread back out. 

“Shit,” Gaspard says, far away, and Kavinsky closes his eyes against the slow turn of the room. 

_Sebastian,_ he thinks and taps his fingertips slowly against the floor. He wishes Sebastian were here. A stupid wish; he doesn’t know if Sebastian smokes, if he would want to be here. He just knows that’s what he wants. 

Stupid. 

He laughs again, laughs and laughs until Xavier punches him in the hip.

//

They’re at a party, another Oizo house show with Franck’s band. It’s normal, now. It’s nothing to squeeze in next to Sebastian on a dirty little couch and whisper things that mean nothing just to hear himself talk, to hear Sebastian talk back.

He’s drunk but not very. Just enough to make him brave. 

“Come outside for a smoke with me,” Sebastian says in Kavinsky’s ear. It’s nothing. He’s said it a million times before. 

His eyes are bright despite his carefully neutral expression. Franck’s band is playing, so loud the whisper is almost unnecessary.

Kavinsky hopes it’s too dark for anyone to catch the way he almost trips on the way to his feet, eager and clumsy. Sebastian’s slower, more purposeful, follows Kavinsky towards the door with his hands in his jacket pockets. No one watches them go. 

It’s dark out, and a little chilly, and Kavinsky steers them over to his car just from someplace to be. He fumbles trying to get his smokes out of his pocket, finally pulls one free and offers it wordlessly. Sebastian takes it, then the lighter Kavinsky offers when he’s lit up his own. 

They smoke in silence for a long few minutes. 

The street is deserted, the houses all half-abandoned squats full of people that can’t and won’t care. All he can hear is the thrumming precision of Franck and his bass, more in his chest than his ears. It feels fitting somehow.

Sebastian tilts his head back against the night and drops the cigarette to the ground, grinding it out slowly. Then he's looking sideways to Kavinsky through a fringe of hair, blue eyes and just a hint of a smirk. Ugly-pretty, Sebastian, Kavinsky suddenly can't breathe right. 

_Oh, hell,_ he thinks, and then he says “I want to kiss you,” because it’s the truth and he can’t imagine saying anything else in this moment. 

There’s a pause that can't be the centuries it feels like.

“Alright,” Sebastian says. He's still smirking but it looks brighter, eyes shining. Kavinsky’s breath catches in his chest and he drops his own mostly-smoked cigarette. He doesn’t bother grinding it out, it’s too cold for anything to catch anyway. He’s busy reaching out, catching Sebastian’s stupid, _ridiculous_ hair in his hand and pulling Sebastian gently towards him. 

He tastes like cigarettes and mint gum and he’s dizzyingly warm. 

Kavinsky slips a hand up into his dark, shaggy hair and stays there, kisses with all the hot, dizzying want he has shivering in the base of his gut. Sebastian’s kissing back, _Sebastian’s kissing back_ , hard and needy and making soft, sweet little noises when Kavinsky hesitantly opens his mouth. His lips are chapped, a hysterical part of Kavinsky notes. 

Sebastian’s panting when Kavinsky pulls back. Mouth dark and shining wetly in the streetlight. Kavinsky can’t breathe. 

“You,” he begins and then Sebastian's kissing him again, open-mouthed and wet, sloppy and needy. They thump back against the side of Kavinsky’s car and he leans back against it gratefully, settling their hips together and tilting his head for the perfect angle. 

It feels like a sin, feels dirty and sexy and the sweetest kind of rush. It feels like the best crime Kavinsky's ever committed. He wants to never stop, to kiss Sebastian under orange streetlights against his car to the distant sound of Franck's bass forever. Nothing about this feels real and Kavinsky pulls away to mouth against Sebastian's jaw. It feels like a fantasy, like a big-screen movie. Sebastian's cock heavy against his thigh, hand against Kavinsky's neck and hip. 

“Shit,” Sebastian whispers, voice thick. “Fuck, Kav.”

He's ducking in a moment later, a filthy grind against Kavinsky's that drags them closer together, leaves Kavinsky biting back a whimper at the rough friction against his aching cock. Sebastian's mouth lands in his neck a moment later.

It presses a lingering kiss for a second - soft lips, wet and hot, Kavinsky _wants_ \- and then the sting of teeth, shocking and white against the darkness of his closed eyes. He moans, a broken noise that Sebastian must like because he grinds again. Slow, filthy-slow, like he's working to make it last.

“Kavinsky,” Sebastian breathes against his neck and Kavinsky has to work to keep his eyes from rolling back. 

“Please,” he says and then has to pause because he doesn't know what he wants. Doesn't know what to ask for that isn't _everything, anything_. Sebastian's biting again anyway, pressure flirting with pain against Kavinsky's jugular.

It feels dangerous like touching the trigger of a gun and Kavinsky's drunk off it. 

“Come home with me,” he asks impulsively and Sebastian pulls back to look at him. His eyes are shadows in the streetlight. “Come back to my place, c'mon.” 

Sebastian hesitates. A long pause of bass in the distance, the hum of cars streets away. The metal cold against Kavinsky’s back, Sebastian a fire against his chest. He looks terribly human, hollowed out by the buzzing streetlights. 

“Yeah,” he says at last. Suddenly he’s grinning a little, a flash of white teeth, soft and genuine and something Kavinsky can’t remember seeing before. “Yeah, okay.”

“Shit,” Kavinsky breathes and rolls his hips, just once, slow and soft and more of a reminder of how good it feels than any intention. Sebastian’s hard, hot and insistent against him, and he makes a soft noise when Kavinsky moves. It’s good. It’s so good, warm summer and his taste on Kavinsky’s tongue. 

“We gotta get Franck home,” Sebastian says after a minute, slow kisses and hands wandering, lazy. Kavinsky nods, presses his lips to the hollow under Sebastian’s ear and lingers for long moments. They do, they have to get him home, Kavinsky had promised. 

Franck’s done when they stumble inside, a cursory brush-down to shake out the worst of the rumpled clothing and hair. He’s waiting, bass in his hands like it always is. A lifeline. He snorts as soon as he sees them. 

“You have something,” he says, pokes Kavinsky in the neck right where Sebastian had bitten him with a freezing, bony finger. Sebastian isn’t meeting his eyes when Kavinsky looks narrowly over and he has to laugh, throwing an arm around Franck’s shoulders. 

“C’est la vie,” he says, mangles the French so badly Sebastian starts laughing too. He’s got his hands tucked in his jacket pockets but Kavinsky thinks that if they weren’t in public, at a party, someplace people could see… Kavinsky thinks maybe he would have been alright with holding his hand. 

He looks away, walks towards the door with Franck under his arm and Sebastian a half-step behind and thinks he’s pretty sure this is happiness.

//

They drop Franck at the corner of the road of his house. Kavinsky has the presence of mind between the soft touch of Sebastian’s fingertips on his arm, his thigh, his side to feel a distant ache at the way Franck clings to his bass before grudgingly handing it over. He looks small walking away through the night and Sebastian doesn’t protest when Kavinsky doesn’t start the engine right away.

He’s watching Franck walk away too. He smiles when he looks back and catches Kavinsky looking but it’s not a happy smile. Despite that he’s still touching Kavinsky, warm hand on his forearm he seems to have forgotten he’d placed there. 

Kavinsky sets the bass in the backseat, reminds himself to drive it back to Sebastian’s place later, and starts the car. 

The drive is long, feels longer with Sebastian staring out the window, the soft strains of static and rock music from his radio, the cool steering wheel under his palms. He knows it’s ten minutes to his house but it feels like an hour. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. He likes this, Sebastian and his car, wheels on pavement and warm fingertips brushing slow patterns on his arm. 

He could learn to love this. 

He turns onto his street with a pang of loss, Sebastian sitting up straighter when he realizes they’re pulling into a driveway now. The lit-up windows of Kavinsky’s house blaze into the night, yellow and warm and vacant. He glances at them but they’re empty, no one bothering to check who just pulled up. He knew there wouldn’t be. 

“Parents?” Sebastian asks, eyes flickering out the windshield, inscrutable. 

Kavinsky shrugs and grins a sideways grin he knows isn’t nice at all. 

“They won’t care,” he says and throws his door open. It’s colder out now, the fading cold of nighttime and he wants to be inside with Sebastian. “Probably won’t even notice.” 

There’s a moment where Sebastian’s watching him, Kavinsky can see it in his peripheral. Where he looks like he’s about to say something, expression opaque and unreadable. He doesn’t say anything though and when he climbs out of the car after Kavinsky he still doesn’t speak, just reaches out and catches Kavinsky by the back of the neck, reeling him into a kiss that very carefully doesn’t say a word. 

They’re in public but the street is dark, all the houses have their shades drawn, and Kavinsky can’t bring himself to care. He can’t stop kissing Sebastian, can’t pull away until they’re both breathless and panting and needy again. 

“C’mon,” he sighs at last into the bare instant of space between them, the word barely a breath. “Inside, c’mon.” 

Sebastian laughs, throaty and pressing against Kavinsky’s ribs, and turns away. He leaves his hand where it’d fallen to Kavinsky’s waist in their endless moments of kissing. Helplessly Kavinsky follows. Up the steps, to the cheerful welcome mat, Sebastian only removing his hand when Kavinsky’s got his key in the lock. He misses the warmth. 

Sebastian looks around the entryway quietly, toes off his shoes when Kavinsky does, follows him out and into the living room. He doesn’t pretend not to be looking at the pictures on the walls but he doesn’t comment either. 

His mom’s there, curled up in the corner of the couch. She turns the page as Kavinsky turns the corner and glances up from her book with an expression of polite interest. 

“Who’s this, Vincent?” his mom asks vaguely, already looking back down at her book. 

He winces. Sebastian twitches in surprise by his side. 

“A friend,” he says casually and shrugs with carefully constructed carelessness. “Sebastian. We’re going to my room.” 

“Have fun!” his mom says, not bothering to look up. Kavinsky snorts quietly and grabs Sebastian by the elbow, pulls him up the stairs and down the hall. 

His bedroom is right at the end of the hall. Sebastian doesn’t make a sound until they’re inside and the door’s locked behind them. Kavinsky isn’t sure whether he’s grateful for that or not. 

“Vincent?” Sebastian asks. He sounds as carefully blank as he had looked in the car and Kavinsky's decides he is grateful.

“My name’s Kavinsky,” he says and holds Sebastian’s gaze until he shrugs. 

“Kavinsky,” he agrees easily, meets Kavinsky's eyes the whole time. 

Kavinsky thinks he doesn’t love Sebastian yet but, maybe. Thinks maybe someday he could, would love him like all the stupidest radio love songs. He wants to give Sebastian that, give him all of Kavinsky’s stupid stories, explain why he’d chosen this name. Why he felt like he needed a new one. He thinks Sebastian would understand, or try to. It’s a frantic, fluttering feeling in his chest that only fades to something manageable when he looks at Sebastian again and remembers he has time. 

He’ll tell Sebastian someday. Not tonight. Tonight’s for kisses. 

He reaches out and Sebastian reels him in with a flashing grin, half razor-sharp smirk and half sweet affection. It tastes the same when he kisses him. Cigarettes and mint gum.

//

“You’re friends with Sebastian now, huh,” Gaspard says, thumping down to sit on the bleachers next to Kavinsky. A moment later Xavier’s thumping down wordlessly on his other side, bending away with his hand cupped to shield his cigarette from the wind. He somehow manages to convey with the curve of his shoulder that he’s glaring narrowly at Kavinsky.

The fear goes through him. That sick, cold fear, that he’s given it all away and Sebastian will have to pay for it. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” and he’s reaching for cool but his voice comes out a growl instead. The furthest thing from subtle but at least not the shake he can feel building beneath his skin. 

“Yo, chill the fuck out,” Xavier says at last, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and speaking through a thick cloud of smoke. “Dude, what the shit. We’ve barely seen you.” 

“Yeah, if Sebastian’s getting you into the good parties and you’re leaving us behind we’re gonna be fuckin’ pissed,” Gaspard continues, expression petty annoyance, and Kavinsky huffs out a laugh that feels hysterical with relief. His hand is shaking when he swipes the cigarette from Xavier’s hand, still trembling when he raises it to his lips to take a drag. 

“Sebastian goes to shitty parties,” he says instead of what he wants to say, which is… fuck. He doesn’t know. Just scream maybe, something to let out the tension still running like a whipcord under his skin. “It’s Oizo’s scene, you’re not into that shit.” 

“I’m into it if there’s vodka,” Xavier says immediately, and punches Kavinsky in the arm. “Give me back my fucking smoke.” 

“Shit, whatever,” Kavinsky huffs and his hands have stopped shaking mostly when he holds the cigarette out. “You’ll spend like five minutes there and then bitch at me until I drive you to Brodi’s or something, shut the fuck up.” 

Xavier doesn’t notice the last little tremble, or doesn’t comment if he does. He glares instead, grabs the smoke and brings it to his mouth, unpleasant but nothing else. He doesn’t know. Neither of them do. 

“Still,” Gaspard says and elbows Kavinsky from his other side.

//

Sebastian’s been nursing his beer for an hour, possibly longer, and it’s driving Kavinsky fucking insane.

He keeps pressing the glass against his lower lip, wet and dark, tongue flicking out absently to catch the shine. Kavinsky can’t make himself look away and he knows it’s bad. Knows his expression is too telling, knows that anyone that bothers to look can tell how badly he wants the stupid, ugly-pretty boy sitting next to him. 

He can’t bring himself to care when Sebastian finally tips the bottle up and takes a long swallow. His throat works, subtle motion in dim, foggy light. Kavinsky makes a quiet noise, muffles it enough that he thinks no one but Sebastian can hear it. 

Sebastian looks his way and smiles. The bottle’s still pressed to his lips. 

“Fuck you,” Kavinsky says. Sebastian laughs at him, low and with just an edge of meanness that leaves Kavinsky breathless. 

Sebastian goes with him easily when Kavinsky pulls him to his feet, setting aside his beer. He blinks slow when Kavinsky spends a wordless moment just glaring, pleased and unrepentant. Kavinsky growls, gives up, tugs him down the hall. Want is shaking in the pit of his stomach, hot and liquid. 

He hasn’t done this before, not even with Sebastian. The most they’ve done is fumbling, mostly-clothed, getting off with hands and rutting against thighs, furtive and easily hidden. Nothing like this. Not even close, but Kavinsky wants it and can’t imagine denying himself when Sebastian wants it too. He’s following too eagerly to not want it. 

Kavinsky pulls him into the bathroom, careless, doesn’t bother to check who’s watching. Sebastian doesn’t check either, watches him with half-lidded eyes as he locks the door and then reels him in again. His eyes only close when Kavinsky kisses him, when the hot wet flicker of tongue comes into play and makes him moan, still careless, so dangerous. 

“Kav,” Sebastian says and tugs on his hair. 

He goes to his knees with a feeling like he’s dreaming. He wants it though, wants it and knows Sebastian does by the way he grips Kavinsky’s hair when he presses the first chaste kiss to the obscene bulge in his jeans. It tastes like dusty denim and a hint of sweat, musky. He kisses again and again, presses mouth and tongue to the cloth until Sebastian’s swearing over his head and he can taste the faint salt of precum through the fabric. 

His mouth is raw. He loves it, loves everything about it. 

“Kavinsky, _now_ ,” Sebastian says, and Kavinsky would take offense but what he can hear in the crack of Sebastian’s voice is _Kavinsky, please_. 

“Yeah,” he breathes and presses one last kiss, chaste again. Sebastian’s hand is still tight in his hair, a shaking grip that rides the point of pain. They loosen a little when Kavinsky reaches up and fumbles down Sebastian’s zipper. His boxers are black. Kavinsky muffles a laugh by nuzzling into Sebastian’s thigh, a helpless giggle because Sebastian is nothing if not predictable, in the end. 

Sebastian tugs on his hair, a silent complaint, and he kisses again in apology. 

There’s no ceremony in tugging his boxers down, just a moment of touch and exploration and then-

Sebastian tastes like salt. Sweat, precum. Bitter and salty, and Kavinsky licks after it. He can hear Sebastian above him, harsh breathing and a muffled, strangled _oh, god_. He ignores it. Sebastian’s cock is thick and hot and hard in his hand and it jerks when he tongues the head again. 

Sebastian moans when Kavinsky takes him in his mouth and bobs a little bit, tests how much he can fit in his mouth. It feels good. His jaw aches already and he closes his eyes, braces his hands on Sebastian’s thighs and takes Sebastian further. Muscle flexes under his palms, hot and trembling-tight. 

Sebastian’s swearing, talking, he realizes eventually. It’s a dim thought, the echo of how dangerous it is, this bathroom and Kavinsky on his knees with another boy’s cock down his throat. It doesn't stop him, makes him harder, makes his hips buck into nothing at all. There’s saliva gathering on his lips already, wet and turning the motion of Sebastian’s cock in his mouth into a glide, threatening to run down his chin. 

He risks freeing a hand to press against his erection and moans at the feeling. Sebastian moans a moment later, an echo and the tightening of his hand in Kavinsky’s hair. Kavinsky opens his eyes and looks up. 

Sebastian’s splayed against the counter, braced with his free hand in a white-knuckled grip. He’s looking down at Kavinsky with wide eyes, expression alive and focused and almost too much. His eyes flicker closed when Kavinsky pulls back, rests for a moment to pant with the head of Sebastian’s cock against his mouth. 

His eyes are open again in a moment, pupils blown and hungry. 

“Kavinsky,” he says, too loud. They’re going to get caught. They’re going to be discovered. Kavinsky doesn’t fucking care. 

“Sebastian,” he parrots back, the head of Sebastian’s cock pressing against his moving lips in something almost like a kiss. Sebastian’s eyes flicker and his lips part, unconscious slack pleasure. 

Kavinsky unzips his jeans. It echoes so loudly in the bathroom, over their harsh breathing and the distant thrashing noise of Franck’s band. Sebastian watches him reach into his pants, watches him pull his cock free, watches him begin to stroke himself. It feels so fucking good, fast and rough and careless, Sebastian’s eyes like fire on his skin. He closes his eyes for a moment, parts his lips in an open-mouthed kiss to Sebastian’s cock still pressing against his mouth, and when he opens his eyes again Sebastian’s sunk his teeth into his lower lip. 

It looks vicious. Kavinsky wants to bite there too. 

“You’re so…” Sebastian says, voice broken and harsh. “God, Kav.” 

Kavinsky moans. Can't help it, licks over the head of Sebastian's dick and relishes the shudder that runs through the thigh under his hand. He loves this. Fucking hell, but he loves this. 

“Is this,” Sebastian asks, voice broken, rough and harsh. “Fuck, is this the first time you've ever sucked cock?”

Kavinsky nods. It moves Sebastian's dick against his mouth and he opens up, leans in and takes Sebastian into his mouth until he hits the back of Kavinsky's throat and he stops. 

“Christ,” Sebastian breathes and the hand in Kavinsky's hair tightens, pulls him back with a flash of pain. He's pulled back down again a moment later, bobbing on Sebastian's cock. Effortless when he relaxes his jaw and just sucks, sloppy, saliva and precum wet on his lips. 

He strokes himself faster, rougher. Lets Sebastian move him as he likes, closes his eyes and _feels_. It's good. He'd never known anything like this could feel this good. 

“You fucking love it,” Sebastian whispers and his voice is so jagged and something else, wondering or awed maybe. Kavinsky can't think. “You love having a dick in your mouth, don't you. God, shit, _Kav_.” 

Kavinsky moans, feels Sebastian twitching against his tongue. It’s loud, would echo in the cold porcelain of the bathroom if it weren’t muffled by the thickness of Sebastian’s cock. Something about the noise must appeal to Sebastian because he’s cursing again, hauling Kavinsky down until he nearly chokes, until his nose is brushing dark, curly hair. He doesn’t stop moaning, his thoughts are too fuzzy at the edges, indistinct and flying apart between the motion of his hand on his cock and Sebastian’s cock twitching helplessly in his mouth. 

“I’m gonna,” Sebastian says. His voice is high, barely echoes, Kavinsky doesn’t register what he says at all. It’s only when come is hitting the back of his throat, hot and thick and bitter, that he understands. 

He swallows. It feels right, it feels good, he wants to so he does. It’s not bad and he chases it with his tongue until Sebastian’s hissing and hauling him back clumsily by the hair, pulling him away from his softening cock. Sebastian’s knees buckle as soon as he’s clear and then Sebastian’s sliding down the cabinets, ass hitting the floor with a thump. 

He’s staring at Kavinsky, eyes dark and wide. He’s panting still. 

“I wanna watch you,” he breathes and Kavinsky manages a hoarse questioning noise. 

Sebastian reaches out and touches the back of his hand where it’s cupping his aching dick. He hadn’t even realized he’d stopped, too absorbed in the cock in his mouth and the taste of come. When he tightens his hand on his cock he has to hiss because it’s just _so much_ , and Sebastian hasn’t taken his fingers off Kavinsky’s wrist and he has no idea why it’s so stupidly hot. 

He jerks himself off quick, brutal, sets a pace that edges into pain and then into a flat race with himself to come. Sebastian watches the whole time, eyes big and dark and so sharp Kavinsky swears he can feel them cutting into his skin. Orgasm’s approaching, in the tightness in the pit of his stomach and the fluttering tension of his thighs. 

Sebastian’s thumb brushes the head of his cock and he cries out, loud and echoing, and comes all over himself. 

He opens his eyes, a few seconds later. He’s panting, his body feels like jelly and he can’t keep the muffled grin off his face. Sebastian’s still watching him, he realizes when he blinks away a slightly embarrassing level of post-orgasm haze. 

His eyes are still dark but now they’re half-lidded and sleepy looking, and there’s a little smile in the corner of his mouth that makes something in Kavinsky’s chest creak. It’s almost like his Franck-grin, Kavinsky thinks dizzily, except less worried and more… wondering. He has to kiss it, just to taste. 

Sebastian tastes of cigarettes and beer and he snorts when Kavinsky moves to deepen the kiss, probably at the taste of himself still in Kavinsky’s mouth, but he doesn’t say anything and his hand in Kavinsky’s hair keeps him from pulling away.

//

Uffie stops him in the hall between classes and glares at him for what has to be a solid minute before nodding once, sharply, and tapping her knuckles against his upper arm and turning away.

“You’re alright,” she throws over her shoulder, offhanded. Kavinsky doesn’t even fucking know but something about the exchange feels like approval. Whatever. 

Kavinsky tells Sebastian later, trading kisses in the shadows behind the school under the guise of sharing a cigarette. 

It’s dangerous, rushed, looking around every half-second to make absolutely sure no one else is around. Kavinsky can’t stop though, holding his cigarette aside and brushing rough, dry kisses to Sebastian’s hand, his cheek, his lips. Sebastian’s pink with them, taking long drags to hide how affected he is. It fills up the empty space in Kavinsky’s ribcage like fireworks. 

“Uffie likes me,” he says and Sebastian laughs at him. 

“Uffie doesn’t like anyone,” he says. “Except Franck, I think.” 

Kavinsky shrugs and agrees and presses a kiss to the inside of Sebastian’s wrist that makes the breath stutter in Sebastian’s throat. It’s more than enough.

//

“I’m grounded,” Sebastian says and slams his tray down on the cafeteria table with a bang. Franck jumps. Pedro spills his milk a little. Kavinsky raises an eyebrow and nudges his shin with a toe. It’s the most he can do but Sebastian relaxes anyway with a roll of his eyes and a huff of breath.

“Grounded?” Franck asks cautiously. Sebastian grunts and stabs his fork into a pile of corn. 

“Grades,” he says and shrugs. “I’m not, like, you know. They’re not great.” 

“Like that shit means anything,” Kavinsky says reflexively and grins when Sebastian rolls his eyes in agreement. 

“I was, uhm,” Franck says quietly and Sebastian sighs, brushes his hair back from his eyes to look at Franck. 

“I know,” he says quietly. “I’m so sorry, dude, I can’t drive you.” 

Franck sighs, soft and barely audible. It looks like he wilts with it, curving in on himself and tucking his hands into his lap. 

“Wait, you need someone to drive you somewhere?” Kavinsky asks and Franck shrugs. 

“I mean, yeah?” he says, looking down at his hands. His expression is blank and tired and makes Kavinsky’s chest hurt just to look at, Christ. “My band might have a gig but it’s too far to walk and I need my bass, which Sebastian has, so-,” 

“I’ll drive you,” Kavinsky interrupts. 

Franck stares at him for a moment and then a smile breaks across his face that’s just… it’s bright and happy and Kavinsky ruffles his hair fondly. Sebastian’s foot hooks around his under the table and when he looks over Sebastian’s grinning a little too. Quiet and hidden but still there. Kavinsky knows him now.

//

Franck’s gig isn’t at one of Oizo’s house parties, for once. It’s a different party, on a different side of town. Rougher and louder but Franck’s band seems to love it, seems to feed off it. Kavinsky hangs back and doesn’t drink much. It’s weird, being the responsible one.

They finish at midnight and Kavinsky helps them load up their equipment, for given value of helping that means he carries one loop of cord and then props himself up against the hood of the singer’s van and chain-smokes until everyone else has finished packing up. 

Franck leans into his side when they’re drone, steals the smoke from Kavinsky’s hand and takes a drag. 

“Good night,” he says. He’s flushed with happiness, eyes bright. Danger is leaning against the tire next to him. 

“Mhmm,” Kavinsky hums and throws a companionable arm over his shoulder. 

They drive home mostly in silence. Franck’s playing along with the radio, Danger’s neck sideways and awkward but at least not knocking into Kavinsky’s head. His hands are slow and distracted on the strings. He’s staring out the window more often than not but the happy flush is still in his cheeks so Kavinsky doesn’t say anything. 

Kavinsky drops Franck off on the corner of his place. It’s so dark, not a house on the street lit up, but the streetlights are on and Franck doesn’t look bothered. He just runs his fingers greedily over Danger’s scratched varnish and tears himself away. Kavinsky decides not to worry. 

“See you at school,” he mumbles to Kavinsky and grins when Kavinsky ruffles his hair in answer. 

Kavinsky watches him walk away and Franck turns when he’s under the first streetlight, waves once and then disappears back into the darkness. 

Kavinsky starts the car. The station’s still on rock, what Franck had been playing along to. He doesn’t reach over to change it.

//

“Vincent?”

Kavinsky looks up from his plate. His mom’s holding out the house phone and he frowns because people just don’t call him. He can name maybe three people that actually know the number to the house phone and it takes him a second to pull through the surprise to take it. 

“Hey?” he asks hesitantly. 

“Kavinsky?” he hears from the other end and instantly recognizes the voice. It’s Sebastian. Sebastian, but there’s something about the tone Kavinsky can’t parse. It’s hard to tell through the crackle of static, the tinny infidelity of the speaker. 

“Yeah,” he says and Sebastian makes a noise on the other end that has Kavinsky straightening up abruptly. His mom, already sitting back down, stares at him. His dad doesn’t even look up from his plate. 

“Sebastian?” he asks, standing. “What the fuck, what’s going on?”

“Language,” his dad says, still doesn’t look up, and Kavinsky’s shoving back from his chair a moment later. He makes for the hall, feet slipping on slick wood. Fear’s trickling in around the edges of his dumb confusion, sickly-sweet and cold. 

“It's Franck,” Sebastian says simply. His voice comes through thick with static, muffled by distance. The way Kavinsky’s ears are suddenly roaring doesn’t help. 

Kavinsky can hear the way Sebastian’s voice is cracked right through well enough. 

“Shit,” Kavinsky says. His mouth is numb. His tongue feels thick and clumsy and useless. “Shit, fuck, what? What happened, what's wrong?” 

“He got jumped,” Sebastian says. “He's in the hospital, I can't- Kav, I'm not family, they're not letting me in to see him. His dad isn't telling me anything, I just-!” 

He takes a deep breath and then makes a low, animal noise of frustration and stymied rage. It comes through the shitty earpiece crackling and broken, too loud for the cheap speaker. 

Kavinsky feels it down in him like a punch to the gut. He can’t breathe. He’s numb all over, shaking and cold and numb and sick. He can’t stop thinking of Franck as he’d seen him last, twisting under the washed-out orange streetlights to wave back at him, not smiling except maybe a little. Lit up and colorful and _safe, alive_. 

“Is he-,” he breathes and then chokes up with an ugly noise from deep in his throat. 

“He’s alive,” Sebastian says. It sounds like he’s choking. “He was awake, I found him, he wasn’t-,” 

“Seb,” Kavinsky says and he’s groping in his pockets, coming up with his keys. “Where are you, fuck, hospital right? I’ll get you.” 

“No,” Sebastian says and Kavinsky freezes with his hand an instant from closing on the doorknob. 

“Sebastian-,” he begins, feels the fear surging white and cold and in perfect counterpoint to the hot anger. 

“Franck said…” Sebastian says and then makes another noise, disgust and anger Kavinsky feels echoed in the roll of his gut. “Said they were calling him queer. You can’t be here Kav, you can’t… listen, they’ll know. It’s dangerous.” 

“I don’t care,” Kavinsky says hotly and Sebastian’s voice cuts through his, echoing down the line, angry and miserable. 

“Please,” he says quietly, unwillingly. Difficult for him to ask nicely even now. “Just… don’t. They think, shit, they think it’s _you_ , okay? They think it’s you and Franck and you’ll make it worse. _Please_.” 

Kavinsky sits down very suddenly. 

He barely notices the clatter of hard plastic on the floor, the phone. Doesn’t notice the pain in his ass, the radiating ache and the promise of a bruise. Doesn’t notice his mother hovering in the doorway to the dining room. He can’t stop remembering Franck tucked up against his side against the hood of that van at the party, Kavinsky ruffling his hair. The way he’d been so scared for Sebastian he hadn’t _thought_. 

He comes back to himself enough to grope for the phone again, hold it to the ear and hear Sebastian’s harsh breathing. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, numbly. Sebastian makes another noise, sad and shocked. 

“It’s, fuck Kav, it’s not your fucking fault,” he swears. Vehement. Kavinsky almost thinks the heat would be enough to make his fingers less numb if they weren’t gripped so tight around the phone. “I’ll call you when I know more, I gotta go try and make one of the nurses talk to me. It’s not your fault. It’s not.” 

“Alright,” he says, still numb, and Sebastian’s hanging up a moment later with a click that feels so fucking final. 

He lets the phone slip back to the floor and stares at it for what could be a minute. Could be ten. Could have been thirty seconds. 

“Are you alright, honey?” his mom asks hesitantly and bends to scoop up the phone. 

Kavinsky runs a hand through his hair and stares at her for a moment. He can’t process what she’d said for so long he doesn’t even reply. Pointless. 

“I’m going for a drive,” he says and turns away. His dad’s calling after him but he can’t understand a word, his ears are roaring again. His hands are shaking, he discovers when he tries to shove his key into the look on the driver’s side door and misses. It takes him a few tries, thoughtless and blank, and then he’s falling gracelessly into the seat and wrapping shaking hands around the steering wheel. 

The car purrs under him and it feels like the only right thing, pulling out of the driveway. 

He can’t go to Sebastian, can’t go to Franck. Can’t go near either of them – and it is his fault, it _is_ , he should have known somehow. He can drive, though. He can always drive. 

He turns out of town instead of in towards downtown. The hospital. Heads for the freeway, relatively empty this late in the evening. There’s no traffic, no jams, and he pushes his speedometer until it feels almost like the scenery flashing past his windshield is hemming him in instead of helping him escape. 

He’s still shaking, he discovers when he reaches up to push his hair out of his eyes. 

When he sees the exit he takes it, spins the wheel without thinking. He’s going too fast. Can’t really bring himself to care. 

The car skids when he turns onto the first road. He ignores that. He knows these roads – maybe not perfectly but there isn’t anywhere in a hundred or so miles he hasn’t driven at least once. These roads are deserted. The engine growls when he pushes it faster but it feels better, takes another corner and ignores the skid. 

There’s the flash of red out of the corner of his eye – shiny, metal, brilliant headlight, another car on a collision course – and his hands feel frozen on the wheel. It’s too fast. 

_Shit,_ he thinks, _I never-_


End file.
